So they moved on into the twilight, a powerful old man and a short, sturdy girl, marched on into a wilderness that is acquainted only with the voice of the wolf, the caribou and the white owl.
Once as they paused for a moment’s rest beside a great flat rock, the girl removed some object from her pack and held it up to the uncertain light.
“It’s strange,” the old man rumbled. “An arrow, a well-shaped, well-constructed arrow with a death-dealing steel point! Had it been a shot gun shell, that would not have seemed strange. But an arrow!”
“But Grandfather, we——” The girl stroked a strong longbow that hung at her side.
“Yes, I know.” The old man’s smile was good to see. “But we are of a bygone race, at least I am. This is 1928. Except for such as we are, the bow and arrow are of the past. But see!” He started up. “It is getting dark.”
A few yards farther down the strange pair left the stream’s bank to go clambering up a rocky run. Even here they avoided snow. And so, marching sturdily forward, they faded into the gathering darkness and deep shadows of pines.
You have perhaps guessed that the arrow found bobbing its way downstream came from Johnny Thompson’s quiver. In fact at the very moment when the old man and the girl left the cabin, he was engaged in the task of oiling two stout bows and waxing their strings. Having done this, he looked sorrowfully at the single broadhead arrow that remained in his quiver, took one more long gulp of hot black coffee, then set to wondering what lay before him.
To be facing a wilderness alone with bows and arrows as one’s sole means of securing food might seem bad enough. To have but one arrow; what could be worse? A missed shot, a shattering rattle against the rocks, and this arrow might be gone forever.
And then? Blunt arrows, sent crashing into the side of resting rabbit or sleeping ptarmigan would be as deadly as spear point when fired from Johnny’s sixty-pound bow. There was wood all about for shafts. But what of feathers and weights for the tips? One might come upon a sleeping owl. Here would be feathers.
“And yet,” he told himself, “I have not seen a living thing for three days. The country is deserted. But no, not quite. There was the caribou track.”